


the war is over (and we keep on living)

by CharisBlack (RionaHGoch)



Series: we who were born at the age of subversion [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Auror Harry Potter, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Family, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, POV Alternating, POV Multiple, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Survivor Guilt, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29766345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RionaHGoch/pseuds/CharisBlack
Summary: In the bad days, Ginny would ponder over the scars the war had left on them. Many years later, when the bad days had become rare and they had become virtually functioning members of society, Hermione would mention their generation resemblance to the Muggle Lost Generation.And they were truly lost back then, weren’t they? Directionless and disoriented, they couldn’t be called children anymore and yet, they were hardly adults either – people with no idea what to do with the youth they had left.Biweekly Updated!
Relationships: Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: we who were born at the age of subversion [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2201109
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. Ginny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her moments with Harry belonged to another life, which could only be lived in the hours before dawn. Their encounters could not be simply be defined by pleasure though, it was far more primal than it: a need to be assured of the other existence, stolen moments of forgetfulness, in each the world outside did not matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya, this is Theo. So, this is a new idea that I had, and I already have several chapters lined up. It's supposed to the take place in the year after the war, and possibly it could be continued as a series into the years after. Most of time, I will shift the POV, to never repeat the narrator. The only ones that will be repeated are the main characters: Ginny, Hermione, Ron and Harry. The chapters can be read a bit like an oneshot, but not there is a plot within each.
> 
> **Warning:** I feel I should warn people that I'm going to be writing on grief, trauma, avoidance, and a whole bag of issues, which can be read on the tags. I honestly don't know if they can trigger others, I leave that up to your discernment. 

In the bad days, Ginny would ponder over the scars the war had left on them. Many years later, when the bad days had become rare and they had become virtually functioning members of society, Hermione would mention their resemblance to the Muggle Lost Generation.[1] The Lost Generation – a term coined by Americans to refer to people that reached maturity during the Muggle First War. And they were truly lost back then, weren’t they? Directionless and disoriented, they couldn’t be called children anymore and yet, they were hardly adults either – people with no idea what to do with the youth they had left.

When Ginny looked back at those months after the Battle of Hogwarts, she did so with an ounce of derision at their foolishness, principally at her own. To leave a country of adrift souls to their own devices was unadvised under any circumstances, but under their particular ones, it was a recipe for a great disaster. Fortune had favoured the Wizarding World, for it could have been much worse. 

Take, for instance, her relationship with Harry. At the time, she had been deluded enough to believe she the man figured out: a noble boy, she had told herself countless times, who struggled to accept love and with a misplaced sense of guilt. All those aspects were obviously correct, but also not – in truth, Harry Potter was a complex man who, even after all those years, was not completely known to her. 

Ultimately, how much can you truly know someone, when most people still struggle to understand themselves? 

In 1998, Ginny certainly didn’t know who she was. A daughter yes, but to a family of nine who had no idea how to function as a family of eight. A girlfriend perhaps, she and Harry hadn’t taken long to fall in bed together, though what they had back then could be hardly called a relationship. There were still her friends, but after months of coexistence cooped up in a school or a hideout, they had to rush back to their lives, with no time for friendships. She had no place to call home – the Burrow, a ruin after the Death Eaters attacked it at Easter; no laws to follow – or at least, no government to impose them, as the Ministry scrambled to dispose of the parody left behind by Voldermort’s rule; and too many scars on her body – and her soul, a fit of aimless anger at the world and what it had done with everyone she loved.

If left unchecked, her anger would get the best of her – because that, she resorted to throwing herself at work: in the days after the battle, when her mum couldn’t muster the will to get off the bed, Ginny would take over her aunt’s kitchen and cook through sunrise, even though most of them hadn’t mustered any will to eat. Fairview[2] was kept pristine clean by her efforts, and even Muriel couldn’t find much to complain about the matter.

Her family lived dived, metaphorically in the sense that none of them was able to reach for another past their grief and physically, Charlie and Percy relocated to the Shell Cottage, while the rest of them spent their nights in Dorset. Ginny hardly saw most of them throughout the days – neither her mum nor George left their rooms most days, and her dad had made his duty to at least attend to the former; Hermione too, for days she would be too anxious to leave the house and then, too anxious to stay around, and whenever the Hermione went, Ron and Harry were dragged behind.

Her moments with Harry belonged to another life, which could only be lived in the hours before dawn. Their encounters could not be simply be defined by pleasure though, it was far more primal than it: a need to be assured of the other existence, stolen moments of forgetfulness, in each the world outside did not matter. 

It had all started on the dawn of the day after the battle. Throughout the day past, Ginny had caught glimpses of Harry across the school, but there was too much to be done for them to meet. At sunset, she noticed he and Ron had disappeared and nearly panicked before Neville took notice of her worry, and swiftly informed her brother and his friends were dealing with Shacklebolt, the newly appointed minister. Nev, like Harry, would be too aware of everything in the days that followed. When her dad dragged them to her aunt’s, they were still nowhere to be seen; Ginny had cooked dinner and gone to bed, or at least, tried to: in the following weeks, she’d discover that sleep eluded her – in the middle of the night when there was nothing more to be done, her ire became more pronounced and the more she tried to fall asleep, the stronger it grew.

The birds were already rehearsing their chorus when she heard someone in the kitchen; that had been Harry, of course. Muriel had a lovely kitchen – olive-coloured cabinets and oak counters, copper cookware hanging from racks — needless to say, that could barely be seen at the shade of firstlight, even Harry was difficult to recognise, his body eclipsed by the light coming out from the window. He had no trouble:

“Gin, tea?” he had offered, putting a kettle on the fire. There was something very portentous about him then: strangely, it would take her a week to notice how her brother and his friends had emaciated in the past year, even after seeing his best friend naked at least four times during that week. That night, his undernourishment had gone unnoticed, as had his new scars. That night, Harry had only looked alive and there – the man she had loved for a few years already, a man she had thought dead quite a few times in the past year.

Ginny hadn’t answered his offer – that she remembered because the puzzled look he had as she approached him was so very Harry. She imagined he had looked even more confused when she snuck her arms around his torso, burying her face between his shoulders. At first contact, he froze under the touch, before relaxing. For quite a while, they had stayed like that, Harry settled under her touch as she counted his breaths. He smelled of soot and fresh earth, and Ginny doubted he had bathed after the battle – probably just a cleaning charm throughout the day. The moment was broken by the chiming of the kettle.

“Gin, I’m sorry.” He whispered into the night. “It’s all my fault.”

That was also very Harry. An unreasonable guilty complex wrapped up by some self-centredness. She had probably snorted – she always snorted when he fell back into his old habits. Most of the time, she would reply with something witty – she certainly had thought of many things to say on that occasion, but she hadn’t, choosing instead to ignore that conversation. If she could, she would ignore that conversation forever – all the reassurances in the world weren’t enough to make Harry any less prone to guilt, and she had too much anger within herself to provide any of it.

_ You are alive. _ “I love you.” She had mumbled into his shirt.  _ Don’t dare to die again. What must I do for you to stay alive?  _

Ginny knew Harry wouldn’t understand all the things she left unsaid – it was not in his nature to perceive any kind of protectiveness related to him. No matter – she didn’t wish (or couldn’t, for the matter) to explain the sentiment to him either.

“Gin.” Ginny, on the other hand, found her name on his lips was enough of a declaration of love: she turned him around and pushed herself onto the tips of her toes to kiss him. Nine months without feeling his arms around her as he kissed her back, nine months without tangling her fingers on his hair, pulling his head to meet hers – it felt more like an eternity as if they had aged a thousand years apart without a source of joy in their lives. When they broke apart, he cradled her face with his hands, a whisper: “I can’t go on without you.”

“Come, you must be tired.” 

They didn’t fall asleep that night. She had dragged him to her bedroom – the one she was supposed to share with Hermione but her friend hadn’t ever shown up. Instead, she had taken off his shirt and laid her head on his chest, counting heartbeats until she wasn’t quite unconscious, but more dazed than she had been in the last hours. Harry hadn’t slept a moment; she felt his left hand tracing patterns on her back until the end of the morning when they both decided to get up, his other hand laid still by his side, gripping his wand as he watched the door.

The next night, Ginny did everything to relax him, and while they were together, he did. But after they were finished, he fell back to his watchful state. Soon, Ginny dropped any delusions of actually falling asleep; and their nights were turned into rounds of sex, interspersed by post-coital haze. Together, they discovered that shagging was the best way to take a break from reality.

After the first night, Harry was more careful, leaving after the crack of dawn, just before the house awoke, to jog around the outskirts of Wimbourne. He always brought fresh groceries back, which put him on the graces of Aunt Muriel. To be honest, they weren’t particularly careful about hiding their relationship, though they didn’t announce it either (if they did, Ginny knew someone would feel compelled to advise they should add talking to it, and that, she didn’t want); still, nobody seemed to notice, too much absorbed on their minds. In the light of day, it was almost funny to find Harry in the house. He didn’t stick around Fairview after breakfast, therefore every encounter was as unexpected as the first time she had seen him in the Burrow’s kitchen.

He was very confused by her behaviour, she reckoned. Harry was like that – easy to read in certain situations, and completely unreadable on everything else. He kept his thoughts too close to his heart for them to be read and yet projected very simple emotions. Hence, she knew he was confused by her actions and still had no idea what went through his head when faced with them. Even then, she knew they should talk. The great challenge was, and still is, the distance between should and would. To talk, she would have to process the thoughts, to let herself be angry, to let herself be sad – and she knew that whatever came out of those feelings, would not be pretty.

Most of the days after the battle, Ginny tried not to think.

For most of it, she was successful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1]. The **Lost Generation** was the social generational cohort that came of age during World War I; predecessors to the Greatest Generation. The term is heavily associated with Ernest Hemingway. Back
> 
> [2]. **Fairview** , Muriel Prewett’s house in Wimbourne, Dorset. I chose this location based on the description of it being _not far_ from The Burrow. Back


	2. Hermione

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are quite a lot of books on how to deal with the experience of being in a war. Those, as it turns out, are the least helpful. Nonetheless, Hermione will read most of them in the years to come, and diagnose every one of her friends with at least one sign of a mental disorder. She keeps a list of them in her agenda, and even after they no longer show on her radar, she watches for signs of a relapse. After all the books, she still feels wholly unprepared to deal with it. 
> 
> Mostly, she advises them to seek professional help, even if she never does it herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter of the week! Yay to me, yay to us!
> 
> Also, you can check out the progress and some covers for each chapter on my [ Tumblr ](https://nymphadorass.tumblr.com/) account.

There are few books on how to win wars. That’s to be expected – she imagined the target audience of a book like that might be a bit restricted. All the same, there are some: _The Art of War_ by Sun Tzu, _On War_ by Carl von Clausewitz, _The History of the Peloponnesian War_ by Thucydides, _The Book of the Five Rings_ by Miyamoto Musashi, _Civil War Stories_ by Ambrose Bierce, _Seven Pillars of Wisdom_ by Thomas Edward Lawrence. 

There weren’t any books on how to rebuild a government after you helped to topple down the bloodthirsty magic dictatorship that had been in place before. The closest she had ever come across had been a few biographies and, yes, Lord of the Rings, which understood quite well the magical perspective and their whole situation. She didn’t think most of their problems would be solved by a bunch of weddings, though. 

At least, that was not something that they had to solve by themselves (they did try, though). Years later, when asked about the days after the Battle of Hogwarts, Hermione would describe them as chaotic planning, and a pit of good intentions. What she would never confess was that she barely remembered those days – her mind overworked with worry. In all honesty, she didn’t think she would know what had happened those days if she hadn’t kept thorough records in a journal. On May 2, one can find the following entries:

_7.25_

| 

> _H. alive. R. alive. Inside G. Tower. V. dead. H. won. Hor. destroyed. E. W. w/A.D. R. S. in F. F. [1]_
> 
> _It’s over._  
  
---|---  
  
_13.30_

| 

> _Approx. 50 dead, among: F.W. (G.), Prof. R.L. (O.) , N. T. (O.), C. C. (G.), L.B. (G.), Prof. S.S. (S.), S. P. (O.), R. M. (H.), A. G. (R.), V. C. (S)., M.M. (R.), F. D. (G.), Prof. B. B. (R.). [2]_
> 
> _Others still to identify and find. My god, how have we come to this?_  
  
_14.15_

| 

> _Floo Network is closed. Portkeys controlled by the Ministry._
> 
> _Death Eaters: approx. 30 killed, 44 arrested, over 100 unaccounted for._
> 
> _If they run, they are lost to us._  
  
_15.50_

| 

> _Drank 1.69 oz of Invigoration Draught. Get a phial to R. &H., too. _
> 
> _Do a Cleaning Charm on them, they look awful._  
  
_16.00_

| 

> _K. S. wants to debrief us after sunset. Find R. &H. to decide what to say. Should we reveal about the Hor. and the D. H.? _
> 
> _Think about the long-term consequences. Make a list of pros and cons._  
  
_17.20_

| 

> _M &A. W. w/G.&G. at F. B&F. W. w/C.&P. at S. C. We go to F., later. Should talk w/R. about F. W. [3] _
> 
> _Still cannot believe he died._  
  
_21.00_

| 

> _The press got wind of it all. K. S. says he will issue a statement, but will have to hold a conference throughout the week. There we must talk about the Hor. Nothing on D.H., though. Apologise to Gringotts before it becomes a thing._
> 
> _~~We cannot trust anyone.~~ Not until they are cleared._
> 
> _Merlin, I reek._  
  
An unsuspecting notebook (which she had cast several protective spells over) was probably the largest source of sanity for her during that time, along with Ron and Harry, who were ever so grateful to provide the actual memories of the events depicted when those were necessary – one of the many positive aspects of keeping them at hand. Harry, in particular, had unusually detailed impressions, which were quite handy in moments of need; in the course of time, she came to believe that the watchful state necessary to produce such memories couldn’t be very healthy, nevertheless, she was quite grateful for it in those early days. 

One might be tempted to bury all remembrance of May ‘98 deep within one’s mind. Hermione’s mind had done that before she could even decide upon it, but what she gathered across the years, she learnt to treasure. Those were not easy days: Harry took upon himself to attend every funeral he was invited to, even the ones of those who hadn’t died in the battle, in what an outsider might interpret as a surprisingly bout of sociality if he weren’t almost completely silent in each of them – as a response, she and Ron assumed the task of accompanying him every time. No respite awaited them on Fairview: on good days, the house was a mausoleum, quiet and haunted by grief; on bad days, one could hear the suffering, as depression turned into anger and everything became a point of contention. In the night, Hermione curled herself between the boys, their beds pushed together, and pretended to be asleep when Harry left his side of the bed to go to the room she was supposed to share with Ginny. That was her moment of rest when most of her loved ones were accounted for, and Hermione didn’t need to imagine the countless scenarios that might lead them to certain death. Sleep didn’t come as a result of peace but as a consequence of exhaustion. 

In the mornings, the illusion was over. After the first week, the number of funerals diminished and, in its place, the visits to the Ministry and Hogwarts increased. Hermione hadn’t been wrong when she wrote that they couldn’t trust anyone: for nine months, the ministry had been under the control of Death Eaters, and it was a difficult task to identify those who had been forced to comply, from those who were the masterminds and the cogs on the wheel of the system. Suddenly, everyone who hadn’t been named undesirable by the previous regime had to be interviewed; most of them would be completely dismissed, but hundreds would be investigated and dozens, indicted. 

In May ‘98, the British Ministry almost came to a point of collapse – there were simply not enough Aurors to settle the chaos – an eighth of them killed in the same battle that ended the war, one eighth murdered in the years before, and another quarter completely compromised. Germany and France had provided personnel and resources to conduct such interviews, thanks to the international contacts of the Order of the Phoenix. The International Confederation of Wizards had enough forethought to send a detachment of Aurors to coordinate efforts in the manhunt for Death Eaters on the loose. 

For some inexplicable reason, the three of them found themselves on the eye of the storm, not only as spokespeople to the interim government but active agents of it. There are others, of course, more suited to the task – wizards and witches who did complete their education, with actual job experience – and somehow, they are still chosen for it. They didn’t question the decision at the time, so very glad to be given the opportunity to do things right and ignore their grief; it would take her years of introspection to finally ask Kinglsey what had made him trust a bunch of unstable misfits. Kingsley had laughed, answering: 

“Well, first you were all so eager to fall into work, I couldn’t pass up the chance. And also because you understood what we were trying to do, what we were trying to build our ministry into – you might as well have dictated it. We both know that there were very few people like that after the war.” He had made a face subsequently and downed an entire glass of firewhiskey in one go. “Probably says a lot about the government we were trying to build, doesn’t it?”

And it did. They were all a bit too idealistic after the war; believing they could conquer it all after defeating Voldemort and itching to brush aside the heavy price they paid to do so. It was partly necessary: they would have definitely given up had they not dared to dream, to crumble centuries of institutionalised nepotism and unrestricted chauvinism was a herculean endeavour, possibly, a never-ending one. They had done their best and yet, every day they continued to do so.

Sometimes, Hermione wondered if they might have done things differently if they had could have saved themselves from some heartache. In the end, they hardly could be called adults when the war ended, despite the fact they had been treated as something similar for quite a long time. Thus, there were mistakes, some that even in her full maturity, Hermione would have made, and others with which she learned. 

Perhaps, being older wouldn’t have changed anything at all. Take Molly, for example, a mother of seven, a wife and sister, someone that Hermione would always see reliable and experienced, even on the matters they couldn’t agree with each other. In the year after the Battle of Hogwarts, Molly had been more prone to bouts of melancholy than one could imagine. War took its toll on all, regardless of age, gender or race. 

There are quite a lot of books on how to deal with the experience of being in a war. Those, as it turns out, are the least helpful. Nonetheless, Hermione will read most of them in the years to come, and diagnose every one of her friends with at least one sign of a mental disorder. She keeps a list of them in her agenda, and even after they no longer show on her radar, she watches for signs of a relapse. After all the books, she still feels wholly unprepared to deal with it. Mostly, she advises them to seek professional help, even if she never does it herself: it’s quite more complicated than that, isn’t it? First, there is the matter of describing what has happened to them. Second, to who describe it: a healer knows too much and a psychiatrist, too little.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine someone writing on a journal to keep herself in check would try to be brief as possible. Because of that, I decided to bring that to the chapter. That said, here is a translation of the most important notes: 
> 
> [1]. In my mind, this was written moments before she tried to sleep, after the battle, a reminder to read after waking up. Here, she says: _Harry's alive, Ron's alive. We're inside the Gryffindor Tower. Voldemort's dead, Harry won. All the Horcruxes were destroyed. Elder Wand is with Albus Dumbledore. Ressurection Stone is in the Forbidden Forest._ This note resumes all her worries in the past months, by the order of priority, I guess. Back
> 
> [2]. In her deceased list, Hermione notes the names and the alliances of the dead. In those that have more than one alligeance, I put the one that would be more obvious to her. Here are the names mentioned: _Fred Weasley (Gryffindor), Remus Lupin (Order), Nymphadora Tonks (Order), Colin Creevey (Gryffindor), Lavender Brown (Gryffindor), Severys Snape (Slytherin), Sturgis Podmore (Order), Roger Malone (Hufflepuff), Anthony Goldstein (Ravenclaw), Vincent Crabbe (Slytherin), Morag MacDougal (Ravenclaw), Fay Dunbar (Gryffindor), Batsheba Babbling (Ravenclaw)._Back
> 
> [3]. Here we have a quick count of the Weasleys, and some reminders to herself: _Molly and Arthur Weasley with George and Ginny at Fairview. Bill and Fleur Weasley with Charlie and Percy at Shell Cottage. We must go to Fairview, later. I should talk with Ron about Fred Weasley._ Back


	3. Ron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Any memory of their Hogwarts years had a kind of alienage to itself as if belonging to a familiar stranger or an unknown friend. Not even a day before, he and Hermione had revisited the Chamber, yet the man that had walked inside of it with his girlfriend was not the boy who had gone down with his best mate five years ago. That boy, he couldn’t even recognise. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! I'll try to post every Thursday and Sunday. 
> 
> Can you guess which POV we'll have next? Tip: It's not a main character, but I find this one to be a gentleman. 
> 
> Check me out on [ Tumblr ](https://nymphadorass.tumblr.com/).

For as long as Ron could remember, he wished to be famous. It was a petty desire and, as he got older, he figured it was not the kind of thing someone should aim to be solely for the sake of fame. In his old age, the triviality of such yearning will even shame him, despite Hermione’s assurances that it was a natural feeling, originated from a profound need to be recognised. His mind’s conversion of fame as something desired into something despised would not be possible without the presence of one Harry Potter, and the war that came along with him. 

The first time Ron reckoned fame wasn’t everything he had expected had been outside the office of the Interim Minister for Magic. Usually, that would be deep underground, below the road of Whitehall in London; but less than a day after the Battle of Hogwarts, the ministry headquarters had yet to be cleared out. Thus, the makeshift ministry was being operated directly from the minister’s home – a hall house outside of Banbury aptly named The Haven. His companions, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, didn’t seem to be enjoying the renown either, but then again, Harry had always abhorred it, and Hermione never cared for it too. 

They were battered and sleep-deprived; if Hermione hadn’t pushed a phial of Invigoration Draught down their throats an hour before, he was sure they would be dead on their feet, no matter how much they still had to do. As it was, the three of them were snuggled up in a loveseat, Hermione half-sitting on his lap, her feet nudging Harry’s tights. They weren’t even alone – The Haven was bustling as officers did their best to coordinate communications with foreign governments, and to cleanse the real headquarters of the ministry. Ever so often, someone would throw a glance at them, and Ron could feel Harry stiffen by his side, high-strung. As a rule, Ron would be embarrassed by their entangled position, yet he didn’t find within himself to care at the moment. 

Everything felt sluggish and unimportant as if all the fame in the world couldn’t bring excitement to his heart. The minister had specifically requested an audience with the three of them, in which they ought to explain how the critical details that ended the war came to be – and all that Ron could think about was the feel of Hermione’s breath on his neck, the incessant tapping of Harry’s wand against the couch arm, and the hollowness of his chest where once had resided his brother. 

“Ron.” That was Hermione. She and Harry had gotten up, and they were peering at his form at the doorway, Kingsley Shacklebolt between them. The minister wore a composed smile on his face, whilst his friends wore twin expressions of concern (well, as identical as any expression could look in faces so different from one another). 

Kingsley’s study was quite similar to the rest of the house, which in turn, was quite similar to its owner: elegant but spartan, function prioritised over opulence on everything but the tiniest details. The Shacklebolts were old money, and as the ancestral home of the family, the house disposed of every comfort, yet all of that had been pushed aside to make the place operational. 

“So,” Kingsley started, which was probably the most disarming way to start a debrief as Minister for Magic. “I was at the Great Hall, and I heard some things. I reckon others did too. But perhaps we could start from the beginning, after the death of Albus Dumbledore.” 

Kingsley had been looking at Harry while he spoke, but after he finished, he changed his focus to Hermione, and then Ron himself. Smart of him – Harry was famously tight-lipped about everything, and anyone with some shrewdness ought to figure that Hermione was the brains of their friendship, and also the one with the one capable of reasonable thought. 

Not that it did matter in this particular case: less than an hour ago, the three of them had shut themselves in one few standing rooms in Hogwarts that was left unused, and rehearsed their story – how much to say, and how much to keep secret. Kingsley, they eventually agreed, deserved to know a bit more of the truth than the others, even if they ought to gloss over some of the details for their privacy’s sake. After that, they had chosen Hermione as a mouthpiece, simply because she was the one with the larger capacity to put events into sentences. Or at least, she usually was: that evening, however, Hermione sat completely wordlessly in the minister’s office, her urgent attention focused on her friends.

“It didn’t begin with Professor Dumbledore’s death.” Harry eventually blurted out. “It did with Merope Gaunt, Tom Riddle’s mother – Voldemort’s that’s it.” Both Ron and Hermione were startled by it, not that it wasn’t the truth, but it was ancient history, and if they were going to stick around to the tale of Tom Riddle’s life, they were going to go home after midnight. Harry probably knew what they were thinking because he winced before giving them a reassuring nod. 

“I heard about it on the Order, so he was truly a half-blood?” Kingsley was interested, leastwise. 

“Yes, but that’s not the important part – as a kid, he was ostracised: I don’t know if the megalomania was there before or not, but what matters is that he grew obsessed with being better than anyone. Blood supremacy was a useful tool to gain followers, so he used it – I have no idea if he believed in it, but it served the purpose.” 

There was something harsh in Harry’s words: a statement of some sorts, an implicit argument. The tone made Hermione smile, and Ron found himself pleased by it. Kingsley also seemed to agree, for he answered: “A dangerous weapon, indeed.”

“This obsession of his also became an obsession with death, or better, immortality. He found a way to make himself, not really immortal, but very hard to kill. Basically, he cut a piece of his soul by murdering people and put it on an object, so if someone attacked his body he could be resurrected from this object.”

There was realisation shining on Kinglsey’s eyes. “You are speaking of a Horcrux, like Herpo the Foul.” 

Well, then. That made things easier to explain, though not by much. Horcruxes were probably one of the least ludicrous aspects of the whole affair. Nevertheless, Harry seemed to have lost any will to speak after that, and Hermione was still considering their friend with something akin to fear. Ron took one of her tiny hands within his and continued: “Yes, Voldemort made seven Horcruxes. His first one was his diary, created by murdering Moaning Myrtle; they attended Hogwarts together. He opened the Chamber of Secrets and let a basilisk loose two times, the first as a student, and the second when his Horcrux possessed my sister, in our second year. Harry destroyed the diary by stabbing it with a basilisk fang.” 

Any memory of their Hogwarts years had a kind of alienage to itself as if belonging to a familiar stranger or an unknown friend. Not even a day before, he and Hermione had revisited the Chamber, yet the man that had walked inside of it with his girlfriend was not the boy who had gone down with his best mate five years ago. That boy, he couldn’t even recognise. 

“That's in 1993. I was away on a mission at the time, but I read a report on it.” Ron remembered peering to look at the notes Kingsley was taking, mainly because he couldn’t make sense of any of them – most of them were drawings not runes, and later Hermione would share her suspicions that he had already cast some spell on them so that anyone that saw them wouldn’t be able to remember the particularities of them. It was wise, he supposed, that the knowledge they shared should be kept within some realm of obscurity. 

“We left the body there – it’s still there. Probably, I should say that Harry used the Sword of Gryffindor to stab it. We used another fang to destroy another Horcrux, the cup, and the sword was used on three others: the ring, the locket and the snake. Hermione figured it out, of course: there are two known ways of destroying one, Fiendfyre and basilisk venom – the sword is goblin made, so it imbibes only what strengths it.” 

Hermione shook his hand away softly, snickering. “Ronald – you are going off on a tangent, though I’m glad you remember my ramblings.” Apparently, she had recovered from whatever she had been concerned about as Hermione’s ability to prattle flourished after that. “The second Horcrux was his family’s ring, which Voldemort created with the murder of his father on his sixth year – that would be 1943. He placed it on the Gaunt shack and set protective spells upon it. And there it remained until ‘96: this was the same ring that cursed Professor Dumbledore’s hand, with a deadly curse that would have killed him within the year. The Headmaster managed to destroy it with the sword.”

“After that, he suspected the truth about the Horcruxes. In our sixth year, he and Harry had meetings in which they discussed it. On the day that Professor Dumbledore died, they had attempted to retrieve the third Horcrux – Salazar Slytherin’s locket. What they didn’t know was that the locket had already been stolen by Regulus Black, a fake left behind. When Headmaster Dumbledore passed away, the task of finding and destroying the Horcruxes fell upon Harry’s shoulders. That’s why the Headmaster left Harry the sword on his will, and why we couldn’t go to Hogwarts this year. For the past nine months, we have been hunting the remaining Horcruxes.” 

It was the first time Ron had the opportunity to think about the Horcrux hunt without being entangled in it. There were no more Horcruxes, no reason to run and hide, nothing to hunt and nothing to destroy. What had he thought about the hunt, before they left the Burrow? He couldn’t remember – even after many years, he would still have difficulty remembering those months before it. The nine months of hunting, Ron remembered fine – the time he was searching for dark artefacts and the time he was chasing the trail of his loved ones – but the life he had before, the person he had been, that he had great trouble remembering. 

Hermione continued to speak, whilst Harry added some details when necessary. Ron drifted off from the conversation, convinced that Hermione had snapped off from whatever had been stopping her before. Instead, he took the two of them in: Hermione was sitting by his left on a chaise lounge, a more respectable distance than the one they had maintained in the hallway, yet still close enough that a slight movement of his hand would make it brush against hers. She had tied her hair on a ponytail, the band straining to keep hold of her brown mane, the golden-brown of her skin muted, as if all the years had caught up with her. They hadn’t changed clothes after the battle, her handbag lost somewhere in the castle that not even her could summon. They had kissed – in his mind, she was already his girlfriend, the love of his life, his brown-haired lass – but he should get around asking her. 

And Harry, his mate, Ron had used the term so many times the world had already lost all meaning. There was nothing of the scrawny boy he had met on the train on the man sitting on the ottoman at his right, except perhaps the scrawny – they had all lost weight in those nine months, and not even their stay on Shell Cottage had made them recuperate it. For all his gauntness, Harry stood tall, a shadow of beard darkening his jaw. Said mate was speaking something about the cup: “He used this murder to create the Horcrux in the cup. We retrieved it from the Lestrange vault in Gringotts, and Hermione stabbed it with a basilisk fang – this morning?”

The three broke in unbelieving snickers. It was hardly the appropriate response, and Kingsley seemed to be startled by their behaviour, but Ron knew what they were thinking – how preposterous it all sounded. Not even a day ago, they had been on the run, not even half of the Horcruxes destroyed. Voldemort was alive and Harry carried a bit of his soul in his body. Ron had six siblings alive and they had many more friends. None of them could actually remember the last time they had a good night of sleep. Some of them would still have many nights to go before actually getting to fall completely unconscious. 

Kingsley asked one question. He had been counting the Horcruxes, making a chronology of the events as they retold the tale. That was good – they hadn’t known if Voldemort would ever be brought to trial if his crimes would be discussed in the context of the law. Posthumous trials weren’t common in the Wizarding World, but Hermione had said they were a thing in the Muggle World. She had insisted they should attempt to keep it impersonal and yet detailed, to leave their conjectures outside, and relay what could be proved. At least, until the last part – that was pure surmise, but also the only possible explanation they had at hand. Ron sensed they had reached that point when Hermione clutched his arm: 

“There is another Horcrux that Voldemort never intended to create. When my parents died and Voldemort tried to kill me, the curse rebounded. I was saved by my mum’s love – that’s what I heard from Professor Dumbledore as a first-year. When the Headmaster discovered the Horcruxes, he began to suspect that might not be the only thing that happened that night. The truth was that when Voldemort’s body was destroyed, part of his soul latched on my own. For almost seventeen years, I was a Horcrux.”

Until that point, Kingsley had easily accepted their explanation – a tribute to the amount of trust the man had on them, surely. That, however, had made him stop. Hours ago, Harry had repeated the same explanation to them – with substantially less detachment. The idea still felt utterly ridiculous: there was nothing in Harry remotely similar to a Horcrux, or to the man who had created them. That Harry had walked into the forest with no intention to walk out of it was considerably less asinine and immensely more unthinkable. 

“Harry never knew that – none of us did, neither did Voldemort,” Hermione added, and her eyes, he noticed, were brimming with unshed tears. Ron clasped her other hand, shaking it gently. “The only person that Dumbledore told it about was Professor Snape. Before he died, he gave Harry the memory of it. When Harry went to meet Voldemort in the Forest, he didn’t intend to survive.” 

Harry came back from whatever place he had drifted to, as Hermione spoke. His voice was surprisingly more level-headed than Ron had come to expect from him in moments of tension. “But I did. I’m ok, ‘Mione.” 

“You didn’t know when you went into the forest.” 

“No. But –,”

Hermione didn’t stick around to hear Harry’s answer. She was crying, there was no denying it. Later, she would confess to run that part of it had been anger at herself, for crying in front of the minister. Then, Ron would understand that when she stormed out of the study, she had done so because she didn’t wish for her collapse to be watched. Immediately after leaving the room, however, she would regret walking out; because if crying in front of the minister was painful, not having him and Harry in her sights was unbearable. 

At that moment though, he could only think the love of his life was crying and he did not know how to end her suffering. He made for the door, but before he reached it, Harry was by his side: “Let me.” 

“Hermione –,”

“I am the one who walked into the damn forest. She should be given the chance to shout at me.” All that Ron could think was how true that was. Indeed, he was tempted to shout at the man himself, but one thing he had learned that year was that he would regret shouting at Harry for being himself. 

Instead, he let him go with a shrug and turned back to the minister. He had forgotten that Kingsley had been watching the whole thing. Ron Weasley and the Minister for Magic alone together. Once, Ron would have dreamed of that same situation but at the moment, all he desired was to be with his love and his mate, and his family. Kingsley probably noticed that, because he said:

“If you wish, we can discuss it later. Take a break. You can go home, sleep it off.” 

Ron considered the proposition; it was a sensible thing to do. But taking a break wouldn’t put the whole thing behind them, nothing would except discussing it. “Nah. Harry was always a self-sacrificing tool but I reckon this time was the last straw. We are going to be pretty pissed for a long time. Anyway, how Harry won the duel it’s actually pretty easy to figure out if you know a bit about wandlore. Riddle’s and Harry’s wands are brothers, so Voldemort had to change it because they wouldn’t fight each other. He stole Dumbledore’s wand, whose loyalty he thought had gone to Snape after the git killed Dumbledore. It didn’t. Bloody Draco Malfoy owned it for a bit before Harry won a duel against him. So Harry was the master of the wand that Voldemort was using, and the duel was won.” 

Ron decided he could get away from popping one of those exploding bonbons Kingsley had over a sideboard into his mouth. He adored the way the chocolate literally detonated on the tongue. “Any questions?”

The minister had snorted, then. “Many.”

What followed was a long succession of questions and details, as if they were ironing every wrinkle of the past. It was a tedious process, not one he’d signed up for when he became Harry’s mate – but still, something useful that he could do. Countless times, Kingsley reassured him (and later, the three of them) that most of the details would never leave the room; only what the four agreed upon would be disclosed. And indeed, even after many years, most of the tale surrounding the Chosen One and his best friends remained in the shadows of obscurity to everyone’s fortune.

That was the first time Ron understood how lacklustre fame actually was, but nothing could compare to the day he participated in his first press conference. It had been held three days after that meeting with Kingsley, in the newly restored atrium of the Ministry headquarters, bare of any statues or fountains. Despite all the people, the place seemed deserted without those. It would take them months to replace it, with a memorial to all those who had their lives lost to Voldemort and his followers. 

The conference – the first time the key figures involved in the war against Riddle sat together to talk with the press. Journalists had come from everywhere in the world, and many questions were shouted in languages he couldn’t understand. Ron had known everyone on the podium – some in passing, but most quite well, and in the coming months, all of them would become even better acquainted. Hermione and Harry, of course, but also Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Tiberius Ogden, Gareth Greengrass and Gawain Robards. 

Reporters everywhere, cameras flashing, people calling his name and shouting questions at him. The glamorous life of a war hero. The mob, Harry had called; he had told them to shake some hands if they wished, but to not forget to keep walking, to visualize the place they had to reach and to make their way steadfastly in that direction. Ron hadn’t thought he would need to use any of it until he was already there, skirting past the media and trying to keep his mind out of thoughts from the battlefield. 

Often he wondered what his younger self had in mind.


	4. Dean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean had never gotten around imagining the life of a fugitive for himself, which made it all the more ironic that he turned into one – hunted down by an evil government and all that jazz. Life on the run wasn’t much like the films promised though; aside from glaring problems such as daily boredom, lack of hygiene and the occasional fear for one’s life, nobody spoke of the loneliness. In the films, the protagonist always had one or two sidekicks for companionship but in real life, people couldn’t meet up somewhere with their friends to go on the run together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do really like Dean. I've a pretty intersting story ready for him. Let's what do you think of this. Though I must say, I love most of the DA. Here we have some new characters; Ernie, Hannah, Neville, Luna, Winky, Kreacher! I did borrow the movies ideas, and Nev and Luna are lowkey dating here, you'll here more on it.

When Dean was a kid, his mum would let him buy tickets for the matinee once a month. He remembered that money was tight – few firms willing to employ a single mom as an accountant – but she never once protested when he barged into her bedroom, prattling about the latest action or sci-fi picture. He had a special place in his heart for films like _The Terminator_ , _Midnight Run_ , _E.T._ and, of course, _Star Wars_. That was the reason why, as a boy, he had a glorified view of fugitives. Growing up, he’d imagined his dad had been one and had left them behind to protect them; and he continued to do so until he reached the age in which holding such beliefs was an exercise of foolishness. 

Dean had never gotten around imagining the life of a fugitive for himself, which made it all the more ironic that he turned into one – hunted down by an evil government and all that jazz. Life on the run wasn’t much like the films promised though; aside from glaring problems such as daily boredom, lack of hygiene and the occasional fear for one’s life, nobody spoke of the loneliness. In the films, the protagonist always had one or two sidekicks for companionship but in real life, people couldn’t meet up somewhere with their friends to go on the run together. Dean hadn’t really noticed how devastating isolation could be, until after he went a week without speaking a word that wasn’t an incantation. 

The day he found Ted Tonks was the best day of his life hitherto, not even the day he received his Hogwarts letter could compare. Grizzled Ted, with a full beard and an amicable smile, always prattling on about his imminent grandchild, who had reminded Dean of his stepdad. Later, they came upon pasty-skinned Dirk, who grew more and more demoralized as days passed, and who sometimes made him think of Seamus; embittered Griphook, who was like an uncle that one didn’t particularly like but still cooked the roast to his taste; and prankish Gornuk, who despite being years decades older than the rest of them, behaved like a younger brother (unless they were playing poker, then the goblin was a master). For a little while, he had been family. 

He wasn’t on the run anymore – hadn’t been for two months; he had his real family to return to, so he did. In the afternoon after the battle, Dean knocked on the door of his family’s terraced house in Leeds. He patiently listened to his mum’s endless scolding until it turned into tears, and let his stepdad clamp every inch of his arms as if checking they were still there. He made a sketch of Gigi for Erin and charmed the kitten to chase a ball of yarn around the page; meanwhile, he listened to Leslie prattle on and on about everything he had missed in the past year. Little Bree, who had only been five when he left, had been a bit shy upon seeing him (how much did she remember?) but she had warmed up to him when he turned the baby molar she had just lost into a golden ring like he had done once for each of the girls. Dean had lost countless nights of sleep worrying about them while he was on the run; Could he have done more to keep them safe? Placed one more protective charm? He had assured himself that no, they would be better protected with just what he had done, that anything else would have just called unwanted attention – in the end, they were alright: Dean being the only link between the Thomases and the Wizarding World. 

The Thomases had embraced his magic entirely, in the same way, his stepdad had once done when there were only him and his mum, but they couldn’t really understand what had happened with him – not this time. Dean didn’t anyone but his band of runaways could, and they were all dead now. 

In the next morning, Dean downed his shabbiest pair of jeans and Apparated his way to Hogsmeade. He wasn’t the only one who had the idea: there was no shortage of friends to meet on the walk from the village to Hogwarts, which only made the absence of some more obvious. Lavender, who had hanged on for her life for some hours, before succumbing to her terrible wounds; Dean didn’t wish to think of her as the body on that hospital bed, but as the girl who would infest the common room with the smell of nail polish. Colin, whose friendship he had to thank Ginny for, as well as the dozens of hours they had wasted discussing the merits of photography and portraiture. Nigel, who wasn’t really supposed to be in the battle, just a kid of fifteen. Anthony, who had always been willing to lend his notes and to translate the chicken scratch he called calligraphy. Gwendoline, [1] who had always somewhat annoyed him with her inability to be annoyed. Fred, who would certainly have uplifted the morose atmosphere by then; all the Weasleys were absent, and he couldn’t blame them. Ginny would be devastated – the twins were her closest siblings aside from Ron, and Dean was pretty sure losing one of them also meant losing part of the other.

Who else? Professor Babbling, who had always quite intimidated him until the day she sat down with him to explain the runic circles that could be used to bring a painting to life. Professor Lupin, who remained, had always been his favourite teacher, simply because he had never felt like one. He had a wife: Dora Tonks, who Dean only knew through her father’s tales – she was dead, too. Ted was going to be a grandfather, that child should be an orphan now. 

Subsequently, he thought of Harry. It was impossible not to think of him these days. At the end of their sixth-year, Dean had wanted to resent him, the boy who got the girl, but it was hard to muster any resentment at someone who carried the world’s weight on his shoulders. Not that the man didn’t have his flaws; he had and they were glaring obvious after six years of sharing a dormitory (for instance, noisy sleep habits), but those made him a bit more real. He was orphaned as a baby, too. How many more families had this war destroyed?

Dean tried to calculate as he observed his fellow hikers. He hadn’t stuck around long after waking inside Gryffindor Tower the day before, but he remembered the mood being rather sombre. That day, however, it felt more...diverse. The morning newspaper had reported several celebrations around the country after the battle, and some of the volunteers seemed to have taken part in the festivities. Gloomy or cheerful – all of the volunteers were expected on the gates by one Ernie Macmillan and one Hannah Abbott, who had bravely taken the task of welcoming them and sending home the revellers with an invitation to come back later after they had ingested a sobering potion.

Ernie, as always, fell a bit on the righteousness spectrum: “Can you believe this?” He had forgone a greeting to launch into a tirade. “People died here just yesterday. What makes these fools think that they can just come here and dance over the bodies? We don’t need their help, and we definitely don’t need it .”

For all the way Ernie could be a bit of a prat, Dean had to concede they were in total agreement this time: his own annoyance nearly lashing out against a group of chattering witches nearby. 

“It’s a tad rude, but I don’t really blame them. The last two years weren’t easy and people finally have a reason to celebrate. I can’t really judge others for finding happiness in some alcohol.” Hannah said. God, how did the devil contend with the angel inside that girl? Dean had seen the witch downing shots of firewhiskey in the same night as she comforted a bunch of first years once. 

It was weird to see Hannah again. They had always had classes together but, like most friends from different houses he had, their friendship had only developed in his fifth-year in DA. Different from most, Hannah hadn’t stuck around for sixth-year and he hadn’t shown up for their seventh. As a consequence, it had been almost two years since the last time they met, and a whole war had happened in the meantime.

“To be honest,” she confessed. “I’m sort of worried for them. The Floo’s down and the Ministry’s keeping portkeys under guard, so most people are Apparating or flying here. What if they fall? Or worse, splinch themselves?”

Indeed, and how many of those would be occupying a bed in St. Mungo’s before nightfall? The day before it had already been pretty hard to find a place for all the ones injured in the battle. The healers would be overloaded with any extra influx. “That’s worse: they will be taking away resources from people who need them.” Hannah threw him a poisonous look – perhaps he shouldn’t have grumbled – Ernie had gestured for him to stop, but why? 

Right, splinching. He had forgotten the girl’s best friend had once almost died from splinching herself; that seemed to have happened a lifetime ago. Dean apologised, and offered to assume the position of one of them – it was the least he could do. However, they would have none of it and, after checking out his identity, they waved him away with an amiable expression plastered on their faces. 

Hufflepuffs. It was impossible to understand them.

When he crossed the viaduct, Dean chuckled: Neville stood upright over a pile of rubble in the middle of the entrance courtyard, as if it were his dais and the volunteers, his orchestra. Nobody had ever changed throughout their school years as much as Neville Longbottom. The confident young man who beckoned him over didn’t fit anymore under the skin of the scaredy-cat he once appeared to be – or perhaps, he finally fit into his own. 

“Hiya, Dean, good to see you!” He shouted enthusiastically. “How is the family?”

“Glad to have me back, rowdy as allus,” Dean answered, stepping on some broken stone bricks to shake his hand. “What’s crackin’?” 

Neville interpreted that as permission to share everything he had missed in the past hours. The day before, half of those that had taken part in the battle had stayed around to help with the bodies and injured, until Professor McGonagall commanded all of them into resting. She had said that they could return to it after daybreak and to all appearances, most would take up the invitation to aid the rebuild. The task of the day was to clean as much debris as possible before a team of Architemancers [2] arrived to evaluate the damage and safety of the infrastructure. According to him, the entire east wing was considered off-limits until further notice, instead, they had been focused on clearing the west courtyards and the grand staircase. 

“Where do you want me?” Dean had questioned, and his former roommate was confused by the question. Well, at least a bit of the old Neville remained there, surprised at being given immediate command. Or perhaps he was just tired, he didn’t seem to have slept much.

He was soon informed that there was a large group gathered around a bridge, which had to be repaired. Seamus was there, apparently, and so were others from DA. Dean had tried to imagine a crowd of people, and his imagination fell shortly – the battle had been the first time in months he had been in the presence of over a dozen. How much had his friends changed while he had been away? How much had he?

“Dean doesn’t want to go there.” Luna, he hadn’t seen her walking into the yard. In the past, he had found her honesty uncomfortable, but he’d discovered the truth those weeks in Shell Cottage: it was a kindness. “The elves might need some help, though. Come on, I will go with you to the kitchens.”

She and Neville exchanged looks before she dropped a kiss on his cheek, to Dean’s surprise. That might have been a friendly gesture if it wasn’t loaded with reassurance and intimacy. That was a match he would never have made on his own. Indeed, even after many years, Dean would still have difficulty grasping what had happened there: it had worked once, therefore he guessed it hadn’t been his place to make any judgment.

After Shell Cottage, Dean would always find it easy to be in Luna’s presence, from the way she was completely undaunted by social norms and yet quick to soothe worries. For example, when tried to explain that he knew the way to the kitchen so she needed not to bother, and she replied that she had second intentions, those being picking up a fudge bar, the preferred snack of dabberblimps.

The Hogwarts kitchens were thankfully left unscathed by the battle, probably due to their location in the basement. He had become familiar with them while dating Ginny – it was the spot of their first date, a snack after class, casual and unique like her. After discovering her predilection for crumpets, he would go there every other day to fetch a batch of those to give to her between classes. Dean was somewhat aware he had tried too hard to make it work when they wanted different things, somedays he wondered if they would have made it if they’re on the same page – perhaps, but they wouldn’t be themselves if that was the case.

The elves were at the kitchen – later, he would discover they had their own quarters adjacent to it. Before, Dean had known the name of two of them: Krafty and Winky. It was odd, to remember how indifferent he had been to them aside from a passing fondness. When he was still a student in Hogwarts, house-elves and goblins were just peculiarities of that exquisite world he had discovered at eleven; the former too eager to serve and the second to be prone to greed. Outside of their particular roles, they hadn’t existed for his past self. 

It was impossible to reconcile that view with that of his current self, who thought of Gornuk as a sibling, Griphook as an uncle, Dobby as his saviour and the dozens of elves recovering from battle in the kitchens as brothers in arms; they who had their losses, their own families and grievances. Dean didn’t try to: instead he greeted Winky and asked her to introduce him to all of those who feel disposed enough to converse.

There used to be over a hundred house-elves in the kitchen, he’d learn. Of those, a fifth had been killed in battle, but more than three-fifths were injured while fighting – not because they didn’t have the ability to protect themselves, but because they were prone to protecting a fellow fighter over themselves. Most of those injuries they were able to sort on their own, but several had to be mended with some help; they were all self-taught, and healing magic wasn’t a knowledge shared outside of very guarded circles. Dean had despaired a bit when hearing that: his knowledge of healing could be resumed to a few spells; but thankfully most of the heavily maimed had already been directed to specialists, and his morning was spent healing cuts, dismantling curses and checking out mending bones. 

There were Gaily and Mosey, with little Bibly between them, a family of true Hogwartians; old Tabby, who had much more stories to tell than breaths to give; absent-minded Kooky, who had attached herself to an elderly elf that went by Kreacher, who seemed to begrudge her presence. Colby, who left to fend for himself when little more than a youngling until he found a safe place; the recently widowed Linthy, and her son Peppy. Not all of them were cheerful, but they had their ways to grieve, and sombreness wasn’t a part of it. Every once in a while, Dean would find a piece of charcoal on his hands, after he was finished healing what he could. What he could put into words, he did, but most of the time he found it easier to just draw them – together despite it all.

On the following days, Dean would spend a lot of time in the kitchens, just listening as they went around, fixing their lives and some food for the volunteers that stuck around. When he could get away with it, he’d try to help with the chores, just for the sake of having Gaily berate him on and on about what wasn’t his job. 

On his third day, Dean was surprised by Ginny at the doorway. He had given her his feelings and offered all support he could – his mother had raised him right, after all – but when his ex-girlfriend declined, he got back to his seat by Winky’s side and listened to her as she spoke of Dobby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1]. **Gwendoline Hedgeflower** is a Hufflepuff character that exists only as an extra in the films, but I really like the name, so I added her here. Back
> 
> [2]. Architemancers is the denomination I came up with to design Arithmancers and Runologists whom specialise in Architecture and/or Engineering. They also have some study in History and Muggle Architecture. Back


End file.
